Monday Memories--Lakeside in the mid-70s

We're back in Columbus this week, with a reasonably full agenda (for us) including hosting a large group for the Cum Cristo team (Cursillo) of which my husband is a member for the September event. I did walk at dawn this morning, but it's not quite the same when you can't see anything over the trees. Don't get me wrong--I love the trees--but you don't see much sun in the early a.m.

Lakeside lakefront cottages on July 18 reflecting the morning sunrise. These were all built around 1915-1920, I think. We rented the one on the far right (a 4-family) in the mid-70s when the children were small. I don't remember how we got into our apartment, but I don't think it was the front door. I think this is the spot where our son caught his first fish.

35 years ago, there were still flat rocks on which you could walk out into the lake to wade, or fish, or just sit on a park bench secured with bolts. As the lake rose to record heights, huge bolders were brought in to protect the housing along the lakefront. The lake has now receded, but the old beauty is now gone, replaced by immigrant bolders, with no work to do.

Abstinence never fails; condoms do

If it weren't so tragic, it would be funny. President Bush is being blamed for a rise in teen-age pregnancy and STDs. He was roundly criticised on the basis of NO evidence, even back when he was governor of Texas. In his first administration he was ridiculed for his plan. Now that couldn't possibly bias the research, could it? Would you ever hear a pro-chastity program on NPR, or see a report in JAMA advocating it as a way to protect young girls? I think not. I know this for certain; Bush wouldn't be getting the credit in the media if the research had gone the other way. His holding the line on stem cell research saved us from countless years of ethical wrangling, and indirectly led the way for a cheaper, easier, safer method. But he's still being criticized and Obama, the most anti-life, anti-child president ever, given credit.

I don't know how many schools implemented "chastity" as a policy (to receive federal tax money), but since that's hard to do, I'm guessing darn few did it with much enthusiasm. It would be like me instructing children in tennis. Every organization, union and association even remotely connected with education were lambasting him on this one (or anything), from the beginning of his career in politics. Perhaps he should have gone the route of another President (OSU). Gee's daughter got a lot of publicity for forcing Wal-Mart to carry Plan B--her fame got her an appointment to the Obama medical team. Although she didn't rise as high as the Alabama MD (Regina Benjamin) running the free clinic. Accessibility to birth control and quicky abortions only increases risk taking among teens, that's been shown countless times, it doesn't decrease it; and none of that removes the risk of an STD. Or emotional trauma or abuse.

Whatever was spent on chastity programs (which I'm guessing looked like the anti-alcohol programs we got in the 50s), it couldn't come close to the trillions in the entertainment field pointing the other direction. Glamorizing trashy, female-demeaning sex in entertainment, gaming and crotch grabbing videos and music is all the rage. However, can blame that on the President? Every method to clean up movies and TV has failed (remember when Tipper Gore led a crusade?) since Frank Sinatra crooned and Elvis thrust his pelvis on the Ed Sullivan Show. Teenagers and old ladies fainted, but for different reasons. In fact, those entreprenuers making the big bucks trafficking in women, teen girls and young boys may be libertarians when it comes to personal values, and Democrats in the voting booth where they can fight regulation. In 2006 the Democrats even pledged a "family values" direction, because they thought it was working for the Republicans.

The current generation of parents of teens has done a reversal of the parenting styles of previous groups--from the 50s-80s. Now, the style is "be best friends," and welcome them home instead of tough love when there's misbehavior. We've got the helicopter parents. Do they say NO to anything? Are they remembering their own youth of the 70s and 80s? What have they communicated? Probably much more than the President or the schools or the churches.

No way to know, of course. Terrorism, the threat of STDs that kill, a long war, a consumer culture out of control just may create an "oh, well" mentality in kids. And let's not discount meaningless technology fads that include e-mailing sexy photos, parents who disrupt children's lives with divorce, recouple, and live together to save on rent. But in the heat of the moment with the hormones raging, I truly doubt that any teen thought to ask, "I wonder if President Bush will be disappointed?."

"Kristi Hamrick, a spokeswoman for American Values, which describes itself as a supporter of traditional marriage and "against liberal education and cultural forces", said the abstinence message is overwhelmed by a culture obsessed with sex.

"It is ridiculous to say that a programme we nominally invest in has failed when it fails to overcome the most sexualised culture in world history. Education that emphasises abstinence as the best option for teens makes up a minuscule part of overall sex education in the United States," she said.

"In every other area of public policy - food, drugs, alcohol - we tell children what is the best choice. It seems very bizarre that the sex education establishment rejects the idea that we should talk to kids about what is best for them. We don't take vodka to drivers education because children will drink and drive."

Banana Republic

Yesterday we had brief catch-up discussions with two different Columbus couples who had recently returned from Washington DC. They'd done some interesting tourist things, but the only location both saw was Arlington Cemetery. And this wasn't their first visit. Both commented on the trash and clutter--one said the area they were in still hadn't had the trash picked up from July 4 celebrations, and public restrooms were the worst they'd seen. But Obama posters were everywhere. Benevolent. Ubiquitous. Omnipresent.

She didn't say income, she said wealth

Many Americans, particularly Democrats, think that these figures of $250,000 or $350,000 for raising taxes mean income, and therefore, they are safe. Maybe they don't own a business; just work at a cushy GS job for $120,000 with bonuses. But income isn't wealth. Having a nice income that you can husband and use wisely, is nice. That's how most people become wealthy. But some people, like Ted Kennedy, inherit wealth and have never held a "real" income producing job, but they sure are wealthy. Because I was a librarian at a state university, my father once said I was on the "dole."

Appearing on NBC "Meet the Press," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said a tax surcharge on wealthy Americans is "a legitimate way to go forward" and beginning with people who make $350,000 is just a mark on the beach with a very hungry tide, in my opinion. She's really talking about taxing wealth, not income. Sebelius grew up in Ohio (governor's daughter) and vacations in Michigan, but she doesn't seem to grasp basic economics about wealth--another one who's never had an income producing job. Kansas, her state, was in tax trouble before the current melt down and she was the governor.

In fact wealth, not income, has always been behind this administration's health plan. There is such a tiny percentage of income earners paying the biggest portion, and such a huge group paying nothing in federal taxes, that there is no way to pull this off by returning tax rates to their Jimmy Carter days (about 70% for the big earners). ERTA, aka Reagan Tax cuts, dropped rates but "the share of the income tax burden borne by the top 10 percent of taxpayers increased from 48.0 percent in 1981 to 57.2 percent in 1988. Meanwhile, the share of income taxes paid by the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers dropped from 7.5 percent in 1981 to 5.7 percent in 1988." JEC Report 1996.

There's a tiny article in the June 24, 2009 JAMA on "insurance affordability." Essentially, it says that even if everyone had insurance (about 15% don't, and many of those aren't citizens, or are very young adults in part time jobs, or are unemployed, or don't use the government programs available to them) there would still be inequitable health care--the reason being wealth.

"For families with access to employer-based insurance, those with insurance had a median income ($53,130) that was 2.9 times higher than for those without insurance ($18,401). But the median net wealth was about 23.2 times higher for those with employer-based insurance ($78,472) than for those who had access to it but were uninsured ($3,384).

For individuals without access to employer-based insurance, those with insurance (i.e., they were purchasing their own insurance the way we all used to do it), make 2.3 times more than their uninsured counterparts ($41,086 vs $17,690) and their net wealth is 34.6 times greater ($105,819 vs. $3,057).

So you see how this works? If you have decided to be one of the millions to start your own business or go into farming or become an entertainer or film maker or become a consultant using your savings, or inheritance, or capital from friends or family, opting for a lower income in hopes of a better future, you are living on your "wealth" and buying your own insurance. But in the government's eyes (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality), you are rich and obviously the problem, not the solution--or that's how it will come down. You wait and see. "Wealth, income, and affordability of health insurance," by Drs. Bernard, Banthin, and Encinosa, in the May/June 2009 Health Affairs 28(3), pp. 887-896.

Disclaimer: If you are currently out of work and have lost your health insurance, Obama says, "That's the way the cookie crumbles. Getting my programs rammed through Congress is more important than restoring your pitiful job." (A paraphrase based solely on his behavior.)

What you can expect with government health care

After Obama succeeds in destroying your current health insurance plan by making it too expensive for small and midsize businesses, what can you expect from the federal government when your employer catches on? It won't be what our elected officials, or civil servants, or even Medicare recipients currently get (although that's about to end). Or even what 3.3 million Native Americans and Alaskan First People get, who have cradle-to-grave care and yet have the highest disease burden and the lowest life expectancy of any U.S. group (how's that plan working). We're about to see one of the biggest give aways to any special interest group (medical technology) from ARRA (stimulus package)--$20 billion--and I know that's just the beginning price tag. I don't know as I'd call those "shovel ready" stimulus jobs or not--the tech field was doing just fine, I thought, with entrepreneurs like Bill Gates and the Google Guys. If you've ever worked with computers, you know the constant upgrading, not talking to each other, and screw ups that can happen. Especially if the government is doing it (I've lost track of the times my identifying information (state of Ohio) has been lost to a hacker or someone taking home a gov't computer that shouldn't and having the computer stolen out of the back seat.)

But back to the Indians and their care givers--I wonder how the IHS will be able to squander the ARRA funds?

"Since June 2008, when Indian Health Service (IHS) officials agreed to implement more stringent controls over property management, the agency has lost about $3.5 million in equipment, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released on June 2 (http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09450.pdf).

According to the report, missing items included an ultrasound unit (valued at $170 000), an x-ray mammography machine (valued at $100 795), dental chairs, cardiac and vital sign monitors, and a pharmacy tablet-counting machine.

The GAO criticized IHS for taking few steps to ensure that its employees are aware of and complying with property policies. It also suggested that the agency failed to hold individuals accountable, noting that the executive in charge of the agency's property group and other areas was given a $13,000 bonus after a GAO report issued last year found that an estimated 5,000 items with an acquisition value of $15.8 million were reported lost or stolen in fiscal years 2004-2007. Mike Mitka, JAMA, July 8, 2009, p. 136.

And although the government disapproves of businesses giving out bonuses to executives for incentives if the business is losing money, it doesn't mind giving bonuses through its own agencies and programs which are notorious spendthrifts and seem to have gotten us into this pickle, which the government now claims it is going to solve by throwing more money into the laps of the same people! This is not new to the Obama Administration. Before, Obama Bush was the all-time big spender President--Obama has made him look like a penny pinching piker.

"The federal government plans to kick its purchasing power into high gear by offering Medicare and Medicaid bonuses to physicians and hospitals that demonstrate "meaningful use" of interoperable, certified EHRs starting in 2011. The stimulus package also provides billions of grant dollars to federal and state organizations for research and the promotion of health-IT adoption." Government technology

I'm all in favor of incentives--but only in private hands. But guess what else is wanted with that $20 billion from the tax payers? Your patient data. Ah, yes. They are salivating over that--and not for you, oh no, but for the "common good" . . . "the collection of aggregate patient data that could vastly improve patient safety, public health monitoring, and medical knowledge. Kind of HIPAA in reverse, I think. There is also a proposal being floated that we not have a choice about participating in medical research (as a control, as a donor, etc.) "The Obligation to Participate in Biomedical Research," JAMA, July 1, 2009 p. 67. I thought it was about the scariest thing I'd ever read combined with the med tech rec threat. The authors, Schaefer, Emanuel and Wertheimer, called reluctance or refusal to participate, "free riding." In other words, your DNA, your experience, or your sick child are just so much gravel to pave the road to losing your freedom. It could be a trade off for the charitable deduction which will probably be taken away (Biden and Obama really didn't use those much anyway)--donate at the lab instead of church.

Another medical boondoggle in the ARRA is $1 billion to support comparative effectiveness research. I'd call that a jobs program for researchers who didn't get medical degrees comparing this device to that device, practice A to practice B, therapy Y to therapy X and then filing for more grant money when no one pays attention.

Lakeside Cottage architecture, pt. 3

Side gable houses with shed dormer to the street, pt. 2

It's difficult to find a cottage that hasn't been modified, filled in, or covered in aluminum or vinyl siding. But this one, which the owner thinks was built around 1910, seems to be almost original, except for an addition in the back which she added after she purchased it in 1974. Here the shed dormer roof doesn't go to the roof line and the windows extend out over the porch.

This one is very similar, with the tapered columns, shed dormer over the porch which doesn't extend to the roof line, but the cottage is wider. The front windows look very similar to the one above.

This home on the west end (older) was built in 1911 according to a plaque. It seems to have the original siding, and the dormer doesn't go to the roof line. The porch has been screened. It is just a block from the lake.


This also has a dormer that doesn't extend to the roof but is over the porch, and has a little extra awning roof over the porch.

This one is a new cottage, designed to look like the style popular 1910-1930 or so. I think it was quite successful. It has a very shallow dormer, and chunky columns with no railing. However, the front doors are double, which I think detracts from the basic style, at least as we see it in Lakeside, and those don't look like 1920s window styles. The new code requires off street parking for two cars which is why you see some odd arrangements, even for new homes. For summer homes people don't worry so much about having a 3-car garage.

I still haven't had a minute to get to to the archives and check out the history of what I see. However, if you are interested in cottages, the 53rd Cottage tour sponsored by the Women's Club is this Thursday, July 23. Two of them are new--one designed by my husband, and just a fabulous house with a great feel, beautiful design, and great attention to the view. We attended a "house blessing" there two weeks ago. Some day I'll blog about that--there are many house blessings on the internet, mainly Lutheran and Episcopal. Three of the cottages on the tour are old and older--from the early 20th, and late 19th centuries.

Side gable, shed dormer, pt. 1

No Respect for this wise Latina

What's most upsetting about the Sotomayor hearings is her lying. I'd actually feel better about her if she had stuck to her beliefs that Latinas (females who claim a genetic link to a Spaniard, rather than some other European) are better at being judges than some male of English, Irish, African, Asian, East European, Scandanavian, German, Russian, or Italian ancestry. And let's face it--some leftists probably aren't happy to hear her make the switch, even though they know she'll reverse it once on the bench. They can be purists, too. She's said it numerous times over a number of years--she will judge based on her feelings and personal experiences, not the law. Why switch horses now? This pony has served her well. Identity politics and the diversity dance got her to a SCOTUS nominee hot seat, and we all know she'll be confirmed. Obama "owes" them--women and Latinos. This is not about her. Why can't she just be honest? That goes a long way with me.

Arlington Cemetery grave offenses

When I heard a story on the news about problems at Arlington Cemetery, I said to my husband, tongue in cheek, "It's probably Bush's fault." And that was the slant. Reporter said that computerization the last 8 years hadn't happened. Apparently paper records sufficed for years, but computer mix-ups (remember Obama wants this for all our health records) are Bush's fault. So I tried to google the story, first finding nothing, and it finally appeared as an "investigative report" on Salon.com, where CBS must have found it. Hmmm. That story, which draws its report from some disgruntled former employees, and the cemetery's long standing rule of cleaning out memorials like photos, flowers, notes (many cemeteries do this) reports:

At the center of the chaos is [Thurman] Higginbotham, [Gina]Gray's former superior and a focus of the Army investigation [Gray was fired and is one source for the story]. While cemetery Superintendent John Metzler is the titular head at Arlington, Higginbotham runs the show, say current and former employees. A tall and imposing man, Higginbotham has worked at the cemetery since 1965. He started as a security guard and worked his way up to deputy supervisor in 1990. In his current position, he has earned a reputation for running the cemetery with an iron fist. (Higginbotham declined to talk to Salon.)

One of Higginbotham's failures, say employees, has been his inability to rectify disturbing discrepancies between burial records and information on headstones. For years, Arlington has struggled to replace paper-and-pen burial records with a satellite-aided system of tracking grave locations. "My goal is to have all the gravesites available online to the public, so people can look up a grave from home and print out a map that will show exactly where the gravesite is," Higginbotham told Government Computer News in April 2006. Such systems are standard at other cemeteries, like the Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio, nearly identical to Arlington in age and size. Yet an effort begun in 2000 to set up a similar system at Arlington remains unrealized."

Ah, there is it. The magic date. OK, Bush didn't take over until 2001, but basically, it must be his fault. Every failing of Congress, all the WMD misinformation that the Democrats promoted in the 90s, it's all Bush's fault. And Higginbotham's position since 1990? Oh well. Have you ever tried to fire a government employee? You can hardly vote out an elected one.

Why they are rushing health care through

"Say this about the 1,018-page health-care bill that House Democrats unveiled this week and that President Obama heartily endorsed: It finally reveals at least some of the price of the reckless ambitions of our current government. With huge majorities and a President in a rush to outrun the declining popularity of his agenda, Democrats are bidding to impose an unrepealable European-style welfare state in a matter of weeks." WSJ Review and outlook

Looking back at what I've written since last July when he became the putative president, why am I not surprised? His handlers carefully went over Hillary's mistakes on health care government take-over of the early 90s, and decided to take a different route--speed, obfuscation and no discussion. Hit 'em high, hit 'em low; apply a twitch so they don't notice the other searing pain (farrier tool).

But perhaps the silliest thing I've seen in print in a long time in the WSJ was the next article by Ted Van Dyk (Hubert Humphrey's assistant in the Johnson White House and active in national Democratic politics over 40 years), subtitled: "The president we have is very different from the man who campaigned for the office in 2008." No he's not. Only an aging Democrat with buyer's remorse could say that. Those of us who saw through the pretty words and polished oratory knew exactly what would happen. There is no one to block him and his "ruin America" agenda. Of course, I didn't believe he was intellectually superior to Bush or that he was a graceful and spellbinding speaker, either. I listen to content, and was very, very afraid of what I heard undergirding the blatitudes and spamobams. Must have learned more in all those boring Russian history classes than I realized.

Obama's methods of take over have certainly caused me to lose faith in Bush's strong belief that democracy was needed in the Middle East. We can't even handle it here in a country where we've had a long tradition of voting and freedom.

So you think you might own a Sears house?

Sears sold about 75,000 pre-cut homes that would arrive in 30,000 pieces at the nearest train station, and all the owner had to do was round up a few friends and family, read the instruction booklet and build his home, also financed by Sears. But according to what I read, about 80% of the people who think they have a Sears home don't. Here's an interesting film about a woman who is an expert. These homes look like many you'll see in small Illinois towns, at least to my eye.

Learn about Sears Kit Homes

Lakeside Cottage architecture, pt. 2

Side gable with shed dormer to the street houses, pt. 1

Next to the farm house and two story camp cottage style, I think the side gable cottage with a shed dormer over the porch or set back in the main house must be the most common. Some have been badly mangled; others lovingly restored. Some await a fairy godmother with a fat wallet or good architect. Here are some in excellent condition, probably looking close to the original.


This is one of my favorites--in beautiful condition. Appears to have native stone for the porch and chimney. I'd say this is very close to a bungalow/arts and crafts design because of the chunky porch columns, brackets and window panes in threes. It has a view of the lake, but isn't so close that it gets damaged in Lake Erie's storms. My recollection is that this home has been restored within the last 20 years and has large open rooms and natural floors inside. The bump-out is in the dining room, I think. A storage shed for bikes and yard equipment was added at the back a few years ago (time gets rather compressed here). The shape of the porch columns, the very low profile and the overhang give it an arts and crafts appearance. See the house next to it? That's what I'm calling a Ross Hip until I find otherwise.

Here's another one--very similar, but different. The shed dormer is taller, and seems to be in line with the main house. The porch hasn't been screened, and the entrance is to the side. There is no wide overhang like the traditional bungalow style, but has the windows in threes both on the porch and in the shed dormer. Those molded concrete blocks were very popular in early 20th c., but I don't know if they are original to the house. The roof line is steeper and there are extra peek-a-boo windows on the side to let in more light. Looks like there might be a basement--fairly rare around here because of the rocky ground.

Here's another one in beautiful condition--a real stop and stare cottage. I heard the tour guide say it is a Sears home, and if so, I didn't see a plan in the Sears archives, but not all are shown. It's different than the two above, and I'd call it a classic arts and crafts bungalow, and probably the only one around here. It has a very low profile, windows in three, a very shallow shed dormer (living was meant to primarily be first floor), wide overhangs, brackets, chunky columns, and the flat porch roof isn't a part of the roof of the main house. This has been a beautiful home for the 35 years I've been coming here, but a few years ago had a burst pipe and suffered interior water damage and mold, and had to be totally redone.

Side gable, shed dormer, pt. 2

A home is not a financial investment

This is one of the myths our government, regardless of party, has told us. That's how we got Fannie Mae, FHA, VA loans, etc. That's why the government, not the banks, gave us the subprime mess.

A home you purchase with a mortgage can be an investment in many things--your family, your neighborhood, shared values with the community, an idea, etc., but if you want a building as a financial investment, buy one and rent it. Then it's an investment.

We own two homes (until last year we owned three because we held the mortgage on our son's home). Right now, both our primary residence (a condo) and our summer cottage (on leased land) are undergoing repairs for water damage. One indication of how desperate the economy is: the Lakeside contractor we hired was 1) able to get here within weeks of calling him, and 2) when he found roof damage, he was able to get a sub here within hours. Normally, (i.e. during the Bush boom years) we could wait months, or even have a no-show.

At our condo, the guy we hired to stain the deck is also a general "handy-man" and he found that our hose connection in the rear under the deck was leaking inside the house when we watered the flowers! Well, that could certainly account for the mold on the books!

So with home values declining, our upkeep is on the incline. But your primary home really always required upkeep--but you have to live somewhere, right? A summer home, however, (or winter if you go south) is just a step above a boat, which is a hole in the lake into which you throw money.

Lakeside cottage styles

Walking through Lakeside since 1974, I've seen a lot of changes. For some of these changes I've held the end of the tape measure, since my husband is an architect, who as a sole practitioner in 1994 said he'd never do a Lakeside house, and has now done over 30. Promises. Promises.

I see these cottages/houses a little differently than an architect, or even another homeowner or renter. I see people, sort of, or at least individuals. Mainly I see older women who used to have great bones, a trim figure and hair with a sheen who now have arthritic knees, a few love handles, a hip replacement, colored hair, and an outfit that doesn't flatter their figure. But if you stop and talk (or stare) you see the same sparkling eyes and smile they had 60 or 120 years ago (speaking figuratively here of a building).

So I thought I'd write a few blogs about cottage styles. We do have an archive here and I could just go there and see if there's an original photo or deed, but for now, I'm just going to look. I'm not super terrific on architectural terms, so I'm just starting with what I do know. Hip. Gable. Gambrel. Mansard. Four-square. Dormer. Shed. Porch. Board and batten. Bungalow. Shotgun. Ranch. Modular. Eclectic. And of course, Mish-mash.

Bungalows. Lakeside doesn't seem to have Chicago bungalows (with a stoop) or a true California bungalow (sort of arts and crafty), but there are some wannabes. I've seen every imaginable definition for bungalow, and American Bungalow, the magazine, has a very lengthy, and confusing definition. I'll hold judgement on this.

Hip roofs that are built on square-shaped structures look like pyramids. Those that protect rectangular dwellings end up with two triangular slopes covering the width of the house and two trapezoids running along its length. There are cottages at Lakeside with hip roofs on an almost perfectly square house, and I'm calling those Ross Hips, because a builder by the name of Ross built many of them at the east end and facing the park and tennis courst. I've checked with the current owner of one, and she says Ross went bankrupt during the Depression. I have a 1927 Lakeside program guide with an ad for Ross Cottages. Many have been remodeled and the porches enclosed, but if you stop and look and if the roof hip seems almost to come to a point, that's probably a Ross. When I see a cottage with some funny, odd shaped gables to the side under a hip roof, I suspect it is an early 20th c. remodeling of an old 1880-1890 classic cottage. I'm just saying. . .

Gable roofs are formed from two sloping sides that meet in a ridge at the top. Gabled roofs are common in the midwest with heavy rain or snowfall because they can shed the moisture. They were the most common beginnings here because they are easy to build and allow for ventilation from the lake, with some cottages laid out like a cross, to catch the breezes from the north or south, and allow a pass through.

Since I don't know how many Lakesiders read my blog, or who might be owner or renter, I'll have to keep quiet on really ugly, bodacious, outlandish do-overs, but there are still a few my husband hasn't rescued. I'll try to stay with the good bones, and original intent.

And we're off. The first item will be "Gable to the side, shed dormer to the street."

Broadcast TV searches for the new bottom

We thought they couldn't debase themselves any further than the 2008 campaign, and then came the 2009 death and memorializing of Michael Jackson.

“ABC, CBS and NBC are supposed to be the last bastions of sober broadcast news reporting, but the flight of viewers and advertisers to the Web and the no-holds-barred slugfests of the cable nets have thrust "real" journalism into a deep identity crisis. Like your 50-year-old moonwalking uncle, they tried to be hip with their coverage of the Michael Jackson memorial, and it was a sad sight to behold.”

I heard it on the street while sitting on my porch at Lakeside. It was storming and our power was out. People were walking around surveying the damage and I heard someone on a bicycle say, “Michael Jackson died.” But millions found out via the internet (they had power).

“We were all treated to the awkward sight of ABC's Charles Gibson and NBC's Brian Williams having to preside over a commercial-free memorial for an entertainer -- not a dead president, pope or princess to be found for miles. CBS's Katie Couric was a little better prepared, thanks to her previous "Today" experiences; in the first hour of her former NBC morning show, she would interview princes and kings; in the last hour, personalities like Prince and Don King. Tuesday didn't have to happen. The Web was ready to step in and save Charles, Katie and Brian from cable news hell.” Story at TechNewsWorld

Today at the Rhein Center

This is our watercolor class with John Behling, OWS, who also teaches in Columbus, and is retired from the Social Work Department at Ohio State. He likes bright colors in sharp value contrasts.





Other classes today near by were glass and calligraphy. The classes are mostly in one big room, with some on the stage, or the porch and some in the yard.

Social(ism) programs, not the economy, matter most

There's an excellent explanation why the "stimulus" isn't working--it was never intended to. It's sop for the voters--at least the voters who voted for Obama. I've said it from the beginning--i.e., last July when he became the actual president and began touring the world asking for the bowed knee or at least a nod and handshake if that didn't work. I jumped right over socialism and pointed to marxism. And throw in a hefty amount of narcissism, too. Others are catching on and the whispers building to shouts.

Jason Furman owes an apology to Michael Boskin, the Stanford economist who wrote a year ago on these pages that Barack Obama would raise American income tax rates nearly to 60%. Mr. Furman, then in the Obama campaign and now at the White House, claimed this was wrong and that Democrats would merely raise taxes back to their Clinton-era level.

House Democrats are now proving that Mr. Boskin had it right, and before it's over even he may have underestimated how high taxes will go. In the middle of a recession and with rising unemployment, Democrats have been letting it leak that they want to raise U.S. tax rates higher than they've been in nearly 30 years in order to finance government health care. Read article here ". . . A new study by the Kaufman Foundation finds that small business entrepreneurs have led America out of its last seven post-World War II recessions. They also generate about two of every three new jobs during a recovery. The more the Obama Democrats reveal of their policies, the more it's clear that they prize income redistribution above all else, including job creation and economic growth."

The sooner the opinion writers, radio talkers, and academic just drop the "let's pretend" jargon and get down to basics, the faster we can get him out of office and on his way with other failed marxists. They don't belong here. Keep them in the halls of ivy and in the non-profits where they belong in their fantasies about "income redistribution."

Those damnable cooking and recipe sites

Lady-Light posted a new blog link today on kosher cooking, but I'm not going there. Fabulous recipes and cooking sites, even the ones that promote healthly, organic, globe-friendly and/or religious/spiritual recipes are really demonic. They just tempt me to leave the computer and go to the kitchen, open the fridge, and eat something, anything, because their blog or website was so tastefully designed and tempting, it made me hungry.

Sometimes, it doesn't even have to be a recipe. Yesterday after art class I rushed to the Farmers' Market before it closed: 2 ears of sweet corn (others can buy a dozen, but my husband hates corn), a bag of dark leaf lettuce, a bag of baby spinach, and a quart of green beans. All of it probably picked within the last 24 hours, grown right here in northern Ohio by local growers, and lovingly trucked to Lakeside, Ohio. So I fixed a fabulous lunch of sweet corn, and tender cooked spinach and since I'd missed my morning apple and carrots (I was out with the bird watchers where I learned binoculars 101), I also ate an apple and carrots. That was so tasty and healthy, I grazed the rest of the day on anything that wasn't nailed down.

Michigan needs more than a CYA speech

Up here where I get different radio stations and newspapers, folks have buyer's remorse big time. Even union members. Yes, folks, they can figure out that happens to water (Great Lakes leisure industry) in the north, and coal in the south, when cap and trade and green-goes put them out of work. There aren't enough green jobs in the world to replace what petroleum has contributed to jobs in Michigan and Ohio. He flies around the world giving purty speeches defending his socialist/marxist programs that can only be put in place if the economy remains in the pits. There are still those around who think he's a good speaker (I never have except for that very first one at the Democratic convention, and even that was a retread of his Illinois senate campaign speeches), but now would be the time for action if he had any intention of saving this country--and he doesn't.

President Barack Obama travels to Macomb Community College in Michigan today where he will unveil $12 billion in aid to the nation’s community colleges. According to Politico, the President’s message will be that “in a competitive global economy, the country’s economic viability depends upon the education and skills of its workers, who will increasingly need to have college experience.” True enough, but who exactly does the President believe will be hiring all of these workers?

The unemployment rate in Michigan is more than 14% and the state is projected to lose more than 310,000 jobs in 2009. A recent study by the Kaufman Foundation found that small businesses have led America out of its last seven recessions generating about two of every three new jobs during a recovery. Unfortunately the President’s top domestic priorities are set to cut off small business growth at the knees." Continue reading at Morning Bell, July 14, 2009

Inside story on the teleprompter failure

"My White House designated operator, Felix, clearly has to go. Today, Big Guy and I were scrolling and speaking to an interest group that supported us, and during the middle of the speech, one of my screens collapsed. Turns out Felix didn't tighten one of my screen's bracket rods, and one of my screens collapsed. It was kind of embarrassing, and the accident looked alot worse than the may have seemed on video.

All that said, I think I tweaked something. It may be my ACL, or maybe my MCL, or my "T" joint. Regardless, the Secret Service sent me first to George Washington University Hospital, where there is a special ICU and care facility for senior administration officials. But a good friend of mine, I'll call him Browny for legal reasons, ended up in a coma there after having "minor sinus surgery" if you get my drift, and there was no way in hell, I was going to put up with that."

More at the Teleprompter blog.

Pillows and Politics--the price we pay

This morning I was changing the sheets on the bed at the cottage, and realized the pillows I purchased in early June were coming apart and shrinking. They look like they are half the size they were just 6 weeks ago. Admittedly, they were cheapies. Maybe $3-$4 dollars at K-Mart. But when I bought them, they felt and looked just like the $6 (whoopee) kind. They seem to be made of layers that come apart. So I switched them with the older pillows (maybe 20 years old) from the guest room, which I think are what we used before. I used to always use a down pillow, but after my rotator cuff problems in the 90s (I'm not an athlete, but librarians lift a lot of heavy material) I found foam more comfortable.

The opposite is true in politics. There too, you get what They pay for, but it is the heavy donors and lobbyists contributing massive amounts that override your common sense when you go into the polling place. The big corporations--energy, health, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing--knew who to spend on this last go around. How do you think they became the players? They do that not out of political or economic philosophy--socialism, marxism, capitalism, etc.--but because then they can influence regulation. In order to be at the top of the heap for cap and trade, or universal health care, or wind or coal, they need to be in a position to 1) influence the administration which appears to be in charge, and 2) destroy all the smaller firms, corporations, businesses, and non-profits which might be interested in the health and wellfare of the American people. And then of course, there is the foreign vote money. We all know it's out there, we just don't know who, what, when, or where, and since we no longer have responsible, investigative journalism, we'll probably never know.

Monday Memories--my brother

This is the most recent photo I have, taken at his class reunion on July 5. He was president of the class and seems to be the MC. There was another photo of him wearing a crown, but there's just too much of that going around these days, so I'm not posting it.



This photo was taken at my grandparents farm, probably around 1948 because my cousin Dianne appears to be about a year old. The arrows are my sisters and me. My uncle Leslie must have taken the photo because he's the only one missing. My brother now lives on that farm after 30+ years of living in Bradenton, FL. He's the little guy in the plaid coat with the big smile.

Faith based prostitution

Gov. Strickland had a problem similar to Pres. Obama’s in finding ethical, honest officials. An earlier story I did on McFadden had a lot of hits recently, so I checked and found this and this in the July 9 and 10 Columbus Dispatch .

A former director of Gov. Ted Strickland's Faith-Based and Community Initiative pleaded guilty this morning to two felony counts after police said he tried to pimp a 17-year-old prostitute.

Robert E. McFadden, 46, of 6290 Hyland Dr., Dublin, pleaded guilty to two counts of compelling prostitution for computer activity he conducted between September and October last year. Five other counts of pandering obscenity and promoting prostitution were dismissed.

Who vets these guys? Does no one who advises the governors and presidents check them out? Maybe they don't need the scrutiny of SCOTUS appointees whom we'll have for their lifetimes, but usually if you've got a funny uncle, an alcoholic, or bigamist hanging around, someone knows about it. I think it's more a reflection that "faith based" offices don't really matter that much and are mainly for show and tell. Still, for $36/hour someone reliable, honest, experienced, etc. should be available. Strickland, a former Methodist pastor, ran on a "values" ticket in 2006 because the former governor's staff didn't vet some golf outing tickets properly.

Activities for Week Four

The morning seminars are on Stuggles of the Early Church and the afternoon is Hot Button Political Issues, so I'm skipping both. At 9:30 I'm in a Watercolor class at the Rhein Center, a class I think I was bumped from other summers (all classes have a limit and there is a "lottery"). The teacher paints in a style I've never tried. Then Tuesday morning at 8 there is a bird walk, and Wednesday at 8:30 is herbs, and we're learning about Vietnamese Cilantro this week. Also today at 3:30 is the nest egg talk and I thought I'd check that out--although not much left of the proverbial nest egg and not enough years left to recover from Obamanomics. Friday at 3:30 Rick Dziak a local artist and gallery owner will speak on plein air painting--that group will be out and about the grounds next week end during the wooden boat show.

Yesterday I attended "Boating on Lake Erie; current issues and concerns." I'm not a boater and don't even like to ride in them, but it is critical to Ohio's economy. Even a short hop to Kelley's feels like riding in a porch swing being slammed against the wall. I learned that it adds $3.5 billion a year to our economy. The speaker from the ODNR told us the big boats and the little boats are still out there, but the mid-size (middle class) are scarce on the water this summer. I see a lot of them still in wraps in storage. It must be the boat owners who are anticipating using their boat gas money to pay the higher taxes on "the rich." Meanwhile hurting all the small businesses that depend on boat traffic in the summer and fall. The ODNR is responsible for 451 miles of Ohio River, 1/2 of Lake Erie, 605 inland lakes, and 60,000 miles of inland streams and rivers.

The other half of Lake Erie is controlled by Canada, and he told a funny story about our Congress. Apparently during hearings about border security after 9/11, some of our brilliant elected officials thought the Great Lakes were a "natural barrier" for illegals and terrorists to cross. I guess they never heard of boats. Just for the record they checked, and found in one year 273 vessels coming from Canada into U.S. waters. No one has yet figured out what to do about the new passport rules, but he said most Canadians they come in contact with do have their passports.

Slow news day

Now that Michael Jackson has been memorialized (not sure where the body is, so don't know about burial) and President Obama is in Africa telling them how to create a democracy, it is a slow news day. The big story was a barking dog in New Hampshire. Apparently that town had a rule that if a dog had barked for 30 minutes the police would intervene. That's probably to protect the owners. Yesterday I heard a barking, barking, barking dog. It sort of came and went. Later I passed one of those huge travel trailers and looked up to see the little yapper in the lap of the female passenger. Neither human was paying any attention to the dog, but even over the noise of the motor with the windows up and door closed, you could hear it. Several blocks away.

The best way to address the barking nuisance is exercise--helps the owner and the dog, particularly big dogs. Next, the owners need training in dog care--discipline, nutrition, kindness and health. It might even improve their relationships with people. Behavior problems, not disease or accidents, is the leading cause of death of pets--i.e. euthanasia.

Here are some doggie photos taken at Lakeside this week.

Lorenzo looks like he might almost be a full Lab, but he was a "rescue" dog, so I suspect not. The first year he barked at everyone, but his owner has settled him down a lot. He was getting up for a stretch as I approached.

This little cutie, a Chihuahua fawn and gray, is wearing a summer pinafore. She just had a baby in October, so maybe she hasn't got her figure back yet. She's about 4 lbs., just a snack for Lorenzo.

I don't see many fat Springer Spaniels--either they run in front of cars, or drag their owners on long runs and wear everyone out. They get their name from "springing" at their prey, or the person with the camera. This one was all over the place until she grabbed his collar.

This is a Lab doing what they love best, chasing something in the water. I don't know how she exercises this dog at home, but at Lakeside they are together at the lakefront every dawn for about an hour. The dog never gets tired of chasing that red knotted rag and eventually the owner has to go back to the cottage and get a nap. Today I also saw a golden in the water, but she was so wet I decided not to get within shaking distance.

Adirondack chair auction today

There will be an Adirondack chair auction at the Steele Memorial Bandstand this afternoon at 5:30. Approvimately 30 chairs have been decorated by various groups, businesses and individuals, some for silent auction and others a live auction. They are all very clever, but my favorite is the one done by the Beckers (Becker Marketing Group), who used various pieces parts of their old cottages, and turned their model into a chair of nostalgia and memories.

This Chair-ity will raise money for a yet unannounced recreation need. Our neighbor, Steve Bemiller, is the auctioneer.





At the auction: Huge crowd, free popcorn, lots of fun


Update: I've read that over $7,000 was raised through the chair auction.

Melissa Manchester performs at Lakeside

And what a spectacular show it was. I rarely stay for an entire performance, but hers was lively, well-paced, respectful to our heritage here (many entertainers don't "get it"), good patter, and a mix of the old and new, so that the boomers got to groove and remember and the younger set (and older) were also entertained. I went back and looked at a few YouTube performances when she was younger and racier, and I must say, I think her voice is better now that she is nearing, dare I say it, 60. She says she spent a few summers as a child at Lake Chautauqua NY because her father was a musician, so she got into the Lakeside spirit as soon as she came through the gate. (Lakeside is one year older than the Chautauqua NY community, but both are built on the same concept--a summer renewal through education, the arts and religion.) A prolific song writer, Ms. Manchester even sang to us a special song she wrote that afternoon about "Lakeside Ohio." The audience was eating out of her hand and gave her a standing ovation.

The whole week has had great performances. Last Friday (July 3) we enjoyed the Lowe Family who usually perform at Branson, MO. If you happen to be within driving distance of any of their road shows, you won't be sorry you made the effort. Then on Tuesday we heard the King's Brass, with so many trombones I thought I'd died and gone to musical heaven. I think all but the encore were Christian selections, another group that "gets it" about Lakeside and what we enjoy. Nagata Shachu, Japanese drummers, enthralled the Lakeside audience at Hoover Auditorium on Thursday night. I think the week of July 4, or its cross over, are big days here and the Vice President of Programming, Shirley Stary really pulls out all the stops.

Speaking of Hoover Auditorium, last Sunday we dedicated a Hoover Potato Digger, now enclosed in a little memorial outside the building near 4th street. The auditorium is named for A.L. Hoover, not President Hoover (although about the same era), and the Hoover family of Milan, Ohio held the patent on the Hoover Potato Digger, selling it to the John Deere Co., and donating money to complete the auditorium and thus rescuing Lakeside financially.

It's reunion time

We see lots of reunions at Lakeside. Families. Classes. Clubs. There's a group of friends here this week who attended grade school together in Peoria, Il some 60 years ago. I've updated my class reunion blog, which had a mini-reunion over the fourth (I wasn't there), and then clicked over to see my brother's class reunion at the White Pines. Only recognized four people. And my brother was one of them. Sigh.

Yes, you can lose a kid at Lakeside

Lakeside is a safe place for children, maybe too safe, because a parent can become careless in supervision. Last night I decided to take an evening walk about 7 p.m. and headed east along the lake. About half way to the far end, I saw a little boy approaching who appeared to be alone. As he passed me and looked up with big blue eyes, I just on a chance said, "Are you alone?" He said something that was completely unintelligible--either he has a speech impediment or has delayed speech, I thought. So I knelt down, and asked him, "Are you looking for someone?" He told me he was following his mom and asked if I had seen her (at least I think this is what he said). I hadn't seen a woman alone, and I told him, and suggested he might want to go back and wait for her at home. Because I was kneeling, he then knelt too. "Do you stay in a cottage?" I asked. "No." "Do you live in a house?" "Yes." "Do you know your last name?" He told me his last name, and when I repeated it, I had it wrong the first time, and he corrected me. "Do you know what street your house is on?" He told me the name of the street and the color of the house, and then ran off to continue looking for Mom.

So I continued on my way and turned on that street and looked for that color house. The first one I came to that matched those two things had a yard cluttered with toys and bikes for a boy about his size (maybe 4 years old). I knocked on the door--the living room was dark except for the glow of a CRT--and I could see there was as much clutter inside as outside. A gray haired man came to the door. "Are you missing a little boy?" I asked. He looked puzzled, and said he had a little boy who was probably with his mother. So I told him about the boy on the lakefront. He put on his slippers and headed out the door. I turned down Third St. but kept peering through to the lakefront to see if I saw them. I never did. I'm afraid the little boy might have been punished, but that's better than falling on the rocks or into the lake. No child should be alone on the lakefront.

Health and Wellness Week at Lakeside

All the programs I attended (5) were excellent with qualified speakers, good graphics, and prepared hand-outs. The problem, as I see it, is in the audience. In most cases, they were preaching to the choir. Also, as I look around and observe people within 10-20 years, up or down, of my age, I see two really common problems that could have been successfully addressed if we'd started 20 years ago. Bones and Obesity. When I see an 82 year old woman who is still 5'10" and walking briskly, with attention to fashion, tall and proud, I want to take a photo and interview her. Is it genes? Nutrition? Exercise?

Dr. Kitty Consolo who spoke on "Exercise is Medicine" had a graphic on stroke which divided the pie into 50% lifestyle, 21% heredity, 7% health care, and 22% environment. I'm a huge believer in the importance of heredity which includes your ethnic make-up, and I think on any scale for any disease it needs to be at least 50%. After the little one pops out of the womb, the parents can only contribute a smidgen of values, and possibly access to a better life than the family next door, but even then, junior or sissy can turn their noses up at that too. After all, you inherit your personality, your intelligence, your talents, your skin and eye color, your athleticism, your body stature, and with two parents and four grandparents, you can inherit just a host of problems that no matter what your environment or health insurance says, are going to be a problem. And all that influences who you will marry, so that adds another piece to the puzzle. We have friends, neither of whom have cystic fibrosis, whose two daughters were diagnosed as adults, after very healthy, high income, athletic childhoods. Both parents were carriers.

And look at all the children born these days with a wide array of life threatening allergies--things almost no one had when I was growing up. Is it later life pregnancy (older eggs and sperm)? Good health care that has allowed carriers to survive that might have died 50 years ago? Something in the food or water? Women exposed to more hazards who work right up to delivery? Who knows? But each generation seems intent on creating a threat-free life, and I don't think it is going to happen.

Yesterday's speaker, Dr. Wendy L. Stuhldreher of Slippery Rock University spoke on supplements, and the take away was, most of them we don't need because extensive testing has shown no benefit. The speciific substance is always better ingested as food. She recommends fish twice a week, more calcium (I just may have to start drinking milk again), eating a lot of variety and color, and always, always tell your MD if you are taking an herbal supplement. She offered some good web sites: www.nof.org, www.eatright.org.

The things we can do something about--like food, alcohol, cigarettes, exercise and the marriage bed--we try to work around by buying pills, supplements or club memberships, or joining a "rights" group which can cover the guilt. Or we expect the government to do it, so we don't have to.

Every town should have a Guys' Club

As far as I know Lakeside's Guy Club has no planned activities, dues or programs. Their mascot seems to be a vintage pick-up truck. However, they are out and about bringing laughter, good cheer and fellowship. Their drill team usually performs in the Fourth of July Parade, and this year they have donated a decorated chair the adirondack chair auction to raise funds for a recreation project, something they certainly know about. Their motto is "We're working on it." They've been known to sponsor an undated tour of sheds and garages, a take-off on our annual Tour of Homes and Tour of Gardens. Occasionally they have a tongue in cheek article in the newspaper.

How ACORN hurts the poor

and scams the middle class. ACORN isn't the only non-profit accepting government money to put people in "affordable homes." They and others, including some well-meaning church groups, contributed to the sub-prime housing failure, which has its roots in the myth that "everyone deserves to own their own home," and the even bigger myth that homeownership is the key to wealth, and therefore banks need to look the other way if minorities or single parents or speculators apply. I've been a homeowner since 1962. We bought a duplex in Champaign, IL with my father's help (his grandmother helped him, and we've helped our children), and although it was a hassle being a landlord, it allowed us to afford something better and make a car payment a few years later. Even so, without his help, we would have done it eventually. But always with 20% down and no more than 1/3 of our income (a wife's income didn't count in the formula in the 1960s) in housing costs. Real income.

That's not how ACORN does it. There are very few foreclosures among people and banks who used the old rules. See the data on negative equity. Foreclosures are very high for no interest loans and accepting government benefits as income. Here's ACORN's website:

With AHC you get:

Lower down payments and closing costs.
No Private Mortage Insurance.
Banks generally require 3 months of mortgage payments in the bank at settlement, but
With our program, they don't, which allows you to buy a home sooner.
Most banks won't count public assistance or voluntarily child support in determining if you'll qualify for a mortgage, but
With our program, all steady income counts.

They are still using that failed formula, but now they are accepting government money to run foreclosure workshops to "help" the people they "helped" the first time around, even though it has been shown that most of those people will fail the second time around too. They really couldn't afford the home ACORN got for them, or didn't want the sacrifices necessary to own a home. But President Obama owes ACORN big time--and no one in his administration will stop this double and triple scamming.

There are many ways to make up that 3 months of mortgage payment in the bank to qualify for a decent bank mortgage--and believe me, you'll need that discipline if you want to be a homeowner--

give up smoking
stop eating out
give up manicures and hair weaves
give up the cell phones
drop your cable subsciption or go to basic-basic
go to the library for your movies
don't lease your furniture or car
learn a few fix-up skills and do your own work
put your family on a cash only budget

and I'm guessing this is not taught to wannabe home owners by ACORN because then the people wouldn't need the hand holding and would become strong and resilient.

Ouch! That was painful

Obama's news conference was on cable at the coffee shop, in all its stammering, disjointed glory. Where is that fabulous, mellifluous orator we were promised? The story about his father coming to the U.S. from Kenya 50 years ago was told twice--I don't know if the teleprompter burped--I don't think he was using it--but possibly he was. He compared the economies of South Korea and Kenya rambling around about hunger (but not his relatives, he assured us). He tried to address why Kenya, which used to be ahead of S. Korea, had fallen so far behind. Well, Mr. President, let me offer an opinion. Kenya got its "freedom" from Britain, and through tribal warfare and political corruption (after the death of Kenyatta in 1978) destroyed much of its culture and economy, which was more free market than marxist.** England and France have poured a lot of pounds and francs and euros into those former colonies and in turn, the leaders have done little to improve either their economy, health, or education system. Those who could get out, like Obama Sr., did so, fleeing either to the British Isles or the U.S. And then there's the malaria problem. Western environmentalists, waving the Rachel Carson banner, have killed or disabled millions and millions of Africans in the last 30 years. By removing DDT before there was a suitable replacement or public health standards in place, or even decent governments, westerners have killed more Africans than were lost in the 17th and 18th slave trade.

Maybe inflicting Obama on us to destroy our economy is the revenge of Africa.
----------------
**"Kenya's first president, Jomo Kenyatta, adopted policies that improved the overall economy and land distribution, while allowing white colonial residents to retain property rights. Particularly after Kenya became a one-party state in 1969, elite members of the president's Kikuyu ethnic group received preferential treatment in the distribution of wealth, land, and offices, and corruption flourished. Under Kenyatta's successor, who took power in 1978, the economy deteriorated. Once one of Africa's economic success stories, Kenya fell into poverty. In 2006, with a growing population of nearly 35 million, Kenya had a nominal GDP of just $21 billion and a nominal GNI per capita of $580, ranked 175th in the world. Adjusted for PPP, the GNI per capita was $1,300, or 185th in the world. While the National Rainbow Coalition in 2002 drove the ruling party from power for the first time since independence, the new government's steps to improve economic performance and decrease corruption became entangled in a political conflict over changes to the constitution aimed at curtailing executive power." from Democracy Web

Final day of class--Friday family photo

My husband teaches Perspective Drawing and Watercolor at the Rhein Center for two different weeks (M-F). He likes to get the morning slots (9:30-11:30) so he can sail in the afternoon. Today is the final day of the second week of classes when the students grab their boards, pencils and erasers and go outside, spread around the grounds, and actually draw a real subject.

I don't know if all the instructors prepare as much as he does, but he is meticulous, focused and mentally thinks it all through ahead of time. Except that one day. He forgot his markers (demos on a white board) and I had to rush up there on my 40 year old bicycle. Last night he was putting some final touches on a demo painting the entire class did-one point perspective with shade and shadow--and cutting some mats. All paintings improve about 30% if you put a nice mat around them. And if you have a fabulous painting and a poorly cut, dirty, or too small mat, you subtract about that much.


I think he added an Amish buggy with a reflector (required by law in Ohio) on this one after I took the photo. Notice that kitchen table? Several years ago when we were both painting, I decided it was just too much mess in the kitchen and fixed up each bedroom with a small corner with room for supplies and good light. I think I used mine once or twice, and his is a catch-all for his class supplies. So we still use the kitchen table.


This is a student from the first week drawing one of the favorites of the class for a two point perspective.

A global crime we really can do something about

As you know if you read this blog, I’m not a true believer in “Human Induced Climate Change.” In fact, I think much of HICC aka Global Warming is just so much hooey and pantheistic drivel which is intended to bring down capitalism and destroy a Judeo-Christian ethic. Currently, every hurricane, tsunami, tornado or blizzard gets thrown in the mix. I’m sitting here where a glacier passed through not too many thousands of years ago, on land that used to be covered by Lake Erie, and let me tell you, I thank God it warmed up! However, there are some global scourges we can do something about, and slavery is one of them.

From Books and Culture:

“Human trafficking is the fastest-growing global crime. The US State Department reports that 800,000 people are trafficked across borders each year. And the total profits of these horrendous crimes are second only to the trafficking of drugs.

How can this be? And more importantly, how can we help?

This eye-opening and challenging book, Stop the Traffik explores trafficking stories that are both horribly familiar and uncomfortably close to home. Authors Steve Chalke and Cherie Blair trace the scale of these terrible crimes and show us what ordinary people can do to Stop the Traffik—and change the world.”

You might have to give up chocolate! Certifying that chocolate is slave-free could make it quite expensive. You might even have to step out of and break the chain that ridicules and sexualizes children--like the network that pays David Letterman.

"TRAFFICKING IS...
to be deceived or taken against your will, bought, sold and transported into slavery for sexual exploitation, sweat shops, child brides, circuses, sacrificial worship, forced begging, sale of human organs, farm labour, domestic servitude."

I'm shocked! Shocked!

Not only is it slow, paltry and ineffective, it's being doled out on the reward system. USAToday reports today: "Billions of dollars in federal aid delivered directly to the local level to help revive the economy have gone overwhelmingly to places that supported President Obama in last year's presidential election.

That aid — about $17 billion — is the first piece of the administration's massive stimulus package that can be tracked locally. Much of it has followed a well-worn path to places that regularly collect a bigger share of federal grants and contracts, guided by formulas that have been in place for decades and leave little room for manipulation."

So does this mean that Democratic districts are in worse shape because they've relied on government hand outs for so long?

HT PUMA

Why do feminists hate Sarah Palin?

This feminist, Reclusive Leftist, attempts to figure it out. Concludes Palin is the designated hate receptacle. And when I checked, she had 486 comments.

Apparently most feminists — at least the ones online — are content to just take the word of the frat boys at DailyKos or the psycho-sexists at Huffington Post. That amazes me. Aren’t you even interested in who she really is? I want to ask. She’s only the second woman on a presidential ticket in our whole fricking history!

But even weirder is what happens when you try to replace the myths with the truth. If you explain, “no, she didn’t charge rape victims,” your feminist interlocutor will come back with something else: “she’s abstinence-only!” No, you say, she’s not; and then the person comes back with, “she’s a creationist!” and so on. “She’s an uneducated moron!” Actually, Sarah Palin is not dumb at all, and based on her interviews and comments, I’d say she has a greater knowledge of evolution, global warming, and the Wisconsin glaciation in Alaska than the average citizen.

But after you’ve had a few of these myth-dispelling conversations, you start to realize that it doesn’t matter. These people don’t hate Palin because of the lies; the lies exist to justify the hate. That’s why they keep reaching and reaching for something else, until they finally get to “she winked on TV!” (And by the way: I’ve been winked at my whole life by my grandmother, aunts, and great-aunts. Who knew it was such a despicable act?)

. . . Her speech [at the Republican Convention] also delivered some welcome punctures to the national gasbag known as Obama. And that’s another thing: it has not escaped my attention that many of the things Palin is accused of, falsely, are actually true of Obama. This is a guy who, as a U.S. senator from Illinois, didn’t even know which Senate committees he was on or which states bordered his own. (And don’t even get me started on Joe “The Talking Donkey” Biden, who thinks FDR was president during the stock market crash and that people watched TV in those days.) I’m not saying Obama’s a moron, but he’s sure as hell no genius." Read the whole thought at Reclusive Leftist and take a look at the nearly 500 comments.

Some really interesting comments:

“Perhaps what I have found viscerally most offensive about the attacks on her are the blogs and distorted photos of that baby. That he is not her natural child. That she has the nerve to give birth to a special needs child. This goes beyond sexism to something very sick in the blogosphere/MSM where such vileness can be spewed. Perhaps we are analogous to the end of the Roman Empire–any sort of spectacle to amuse and keep the masses entertained.”

“There have been 50 million abortions since 1973. That is a lot of women who have lost their children. I’m sure a lot of women are fine with it. But I know there are a lot of women out there who are suffering greatly with guilt and remorse. But feminists aren’t allowed to feel guilty about it. Because they got to choose, god damn it.”

“What has occurred to me is that the way the media and the DC elite have been so condescending is really a reflection of how they really feel about all of us out here in the real world…they think of all of us exactly the way they talk about her…and we are beneath their contempt.” [This has always been my theory--Norma]

“Various “feminists” didn’t want to vote for a woman. They didn’t vote for HRC in the primary, and pretended to think, or convinced themselves they thought, she was a racist who hoped Obama would be assassinated. This didn’t exactly bear up to reasoned analysis. Another more effective mechanism was to decide Obama was the second coming — so who could vote for a mere woman, over that?”

“Palin-hate includes an unhealthy dose of classism as well. She isn’t just a woman, she is a working class woman, a red neck woman, white trash. I know Americans don’t have a class system (they say) but there it is. The other thing is that feminism seems to have enabled women not to become powerful *as women* but to identify with and behave like men. So feminists pile on the misogynist, abusive, slanderous hatred along with the boys as a sign of their equality with them.”

HT Deb

New dining spot in Lakeside

Today we joined Wes and Sue, Jim and Marion at the new al fresco dining room at the Hotel Lakeside which opened Monday. It is located in the new courtyard area with a sidewalk accessible from Maple Avenue. Weather permitting, it will be open Monday through Friday 11:30 - 2 for lunch and 5:30 - 8.

Look who's being blamed!

"Painful but inevitable Social Security and Medicare reforms will be difficult to sell because years of partisan wrangling have clouded the public’s grasp of the programs’ dire financial problems, a former government economic adviser warns." You and I have a poor grasp of the financial problems. It's not that our Congresses and numerous Presidents for the last 40 years have failed, regardless of party, economic growth or national security. From U of I "Inside Illinois." In my opinion, health insurance should have never been tied to employment, should have always been required like auto insurance as a personal responsibility, and government sponsored only for the indigent, disabled, high risk and truly poor. It couldn't have been any more expensive, and we might have avoided this ridiculous political football, now too hot and too big to move. More incentives should have been in place for private investment in retirement, with far more warnings that SS would not, nor was it ever intended, to be the sole source of retirement funding.

I'll save the reminder that we aborted the future workers and safety net, on which both of these systems depend.

Exploring English Sonnets at Lakeside

Everyone enjoyed the sonnets of Shakespeare, Spenser, Donne, Wordsworth, Milton, Wyatt and Labe taught by Steve Ricard, a high school teacher from Perrysville.

Volcano mulching--how to kill a tree

Here at Lakeside we have a number of "healthy living" activities and organizations, from our now twice weekly locally grown farmers' market, to a no-smoking ordinance to recycling, to tree walks, bird watching events, early a.m. exercise class, posted activities for joggers in the park land at the south end, and health and wellness week. At one of the lectures sponsored by LESS (Lakeside Environment Something? Something?) I learned about the care and preservation of our trees, many of which are invasive, like the Norway Maple, some with Emerald Ash Borer, and many over 100 years old. It's there I first heard about "volcano mulching," or piling mulch so deep around a young tree, that you eventually kill it with your kindness and concern.

1. Don't fall into the trap of the dreaded "mulch volcano," especially with young trees.

You've probably seen mulch volcanoes on people's lawns. Folks build circular raised beds around their trees, then fill the raised beds with wood-chip mulch. The mulch gets steeper and steeper the closer it gets to the tree, which shoots out of the hole at the end like a lava eruption! In a typical mulch volcano, the mulch may be 2" high at the perimeter and 6" high up close to the trunk.

There are several problems with mulch volcanoes:
Water runs off the sides of the mulch volcano and away from a young tree's base (which is where all its roots are, for now), thus depriving it of water.

6" of mulch is too deep. Much water that would otherwise reach the tree's roots gets trapped in the mulch.

Excessive tree mulching invites rodent pests and diseases.
Excessive tree mulching can even suffocate roots.

2. Don't mound up dirt or mulch around the trunks of trees.

Piling up mulch against tree trunks can cause harm to your trees: it invites diseases and rodent pests. If you are mulching around a tree, start tapering the height of the mulch down when you get to within about 1' of the trunk, leaving the base of the tree free of mulch. It would even be better to have to weed this 1' than to risk damage to your tree, wouldn't it? About landscaping

Every year there are more and more rules at Lakeside--most positive and for the good of the larger community; barking dogs; hours construction can take place; proper disposal of plastic, paper and metal; building codes for cottages; coverage of buildings on lots; number of parking places required for each cottage; no smoking; no alcohol; no parking on certain streets; quiet zones after 10 p.m.; and so on.

So I am very puzzled that if volcano mulching is known to be harmful to trees, why the Association can't explain that to its landscaping crew, because almost every young tree I see (usually a memoral plaque near-by) has heaps of mulch that will eventually cause the roots to girdle, or rodents to chew, or bark to rot. This would seem to be easier to control than calories, exercise or smoking.



Our speaker on tree care told us to think do-nut instead of volcano.

The rule is simple. Never let mulch around the base of a small tree touch the bark of the tree. The circle of mulch can be three to four inches deep, but in the middle of the circle the trunk is kept bare. The mulch layer should start about 6 inches from the trunk. We want doughnuts not mountains.

This is not new information. It has been general knowledge among reputable tree care professionals for 25 years. The tree care companies that make mulch mountains are just plain ignorant and apparently don’t spend much effort to learn the right methods for mulching small trees. Homeowners see these mulch mountains and figure if the professionals make mulch mountains, maybe I should do the same. The Yardner